Cosette's Tango
by G. Courfeyrac
Summary: Les mis take on Chicago's cell block tango done from Cosette's point of view. A small one shot pre revolution and if Marius and Eponine were in a healthy relationship, what would it do to cosette? This is exactly what it did to her...


Pop. Six. Squish. Uh uh. Cicero. Lipchitz. Guilt. Lie. Overdue pity.

They deserved it. Every single one of them. How could you tell me that I was wrong? You weren't there. You didn't know what every single one of those treacherous people did to me. They used me. They abused me. You would've done the same.

I was scared the first time. But it was easy. No one knew. You know how people have these little habits that get you down. Well, gets him down. Like Grantaire, R. He liked to drink, he liked the satisfactory POP of the cork coming from the bottle. So I made friends with him one day after it came to me in a dream and I knew I had to make them pay, both of them. The quickest way to break HER was to go for their friends. So I went to the Corinth one day and I'm really ready to do this. I've just seen THEM kissing, and I'm looking for a bit of sympathy, and there's Grantaire, looking down at the bottle in his hands, drinking an almost empty wine. Well, not drinking, he pulled the cork from a new bottle, popping it. He did this with around three more bottoms and was really smashed off his face. By now, I'm really iritated at the POPPING and hes going for another bottle, so I turned and I said to him:

"If you POP that bottle, one more time..."

And he did. So I leaned into him and slipped it into the bottle and whacked him on the head and walked out. They thought it was alcohol poisoning. Turns out some men just can't hold their arsenic. It was easy. It gave me the rush and the push to go ahead after I saw at his funeral the next morning that SHE wasn't broken. Well, not enough anyway. Grantaire had it coming. He only had himself to blame.

I met Courfeyrac from Nice a few weeks ago and he told me he was single. After HIM, I needed a release and hit it off with Courfeyrac right away, so he thought. Did I mention I'm a great actress? He believed I wanted him. He didn't have a mistress and that was how I was going to do it. He invited me to his house the evening are Grantaire's funeral. He went out and then came home. I'd fix him a small tipple of wine and then he made us dinner... And then I found out.

"No mistress?" He told me.

No mistress my ass. Not only did he have ONE mistress, oh on.. He had SIX. One of these modern men you know? No one knew I was their at his so I got mad, really made. I took the pistol off his wall as he tried to calm me with saying he'd only gotten three pregnant. I got madder. I fired two warning shots... Into his head.

He took me, a flower in its prime. And then he used me for sex. He abused me for sex. It was a murder, but not a crime. He hurt me first, I just hurt him better. I don't think he was found until the next day, by then, another one bit the dust.

Now, I'm standing in the convent hospital, minding my own business, sorting through bandages, prepared, and in storms Joly, the hypochondriac, in a rage. Of course I don't know what about? I'm too innocent.

"You changed my opium for Bella Donna?" He says. He was crazy and he kept screaming at me. "You switched my opium for BELLA DONNA?"

And then he wrapped the bandages so tight around his throat that he died. By his own hand. I held him as he struggled. He tried to loosen them, but the somehow tightened. So sad. Most of his patients will now die without him, if not from MY Bella Donna. Well by now, SHE was being administered sedatives to keep her calm and always had HIM and another person with what she was a year younger than me? She had caused me pain for three years, now it was her turn to pay. I didn't care she had been in poverty since she was eight.

The next time was the first time I was caught in the act, not that anyone found out. That idiot Bahorel suspected me of killing Joly. I don't know why he thought little me could do such a thing! So he came around my house. He had me cornered in the garden, shouting that I not only had killed the bastard, but his dicks he called friends as well. So naturally, I said I did, scared of what he would do next to me. Lets just say my papa came home as he neck cracked once I'd knocked him out with a frying pan I allocated as I was by the open kitchen window. It took most of my strength and I was exhausted after breaking his neck. Naturally, my papa understood and comforted me. I heard a twig snap and quickly my father pounced on our unexpected visitor as he tried to run away.

"Uh uh." I told Lesgle as he was in my oh so strong papa's grasp.

Then his unlucky streak had hit its finale. It wasn't as if my father held him down as he unfortunately slid his throat over my knife. He always was unlucky. So unlucky, he left a stain on our lovely patio, and without cleaning it up, he died. The cheek! Their bodies were washed up the next morning on the bank of the Seine. I was not guilty. Uh, uh.

My papa and I now had a double act. Partners in crime, no, murder. It was a murder but not a crime. Next came the innocent. I actually enjoyed this one. He never knew what was coming to him. Lets just say the busker, Prouvaire, his flute was a little annoying and I took the empty alley as a greeting from God. Prouvaire never finished his last song as he ran into my knife. He ran into my knife five times outside the hotel Cicero.

Now, I loved a good painting more than I could possibly say. Feuilly, he was a real artistic guy, sensitive, a painter and fan maker. The problem was that he was always trying to find himself. I knew he went out every night looking for himself and instead, he found me. I guess you can say our friendship was short lived because of artistic differences. He saw himself as alive. And it was only I that saw him dead.

By now I was politely informed by my papa that he had seen a blonde student wrestle HER off the bridge over the river. He should've let her drown but then I wouldn't have seen her suffer. I knew I had almost done it. SHE had become suicidal and blamed herself and it was her fault. All of it. She was now being heavily sedated almost twenty four hours, perfect. But I wasn't done causing THEIR pain yet. I had only got seven.

Combeferre was lovely. I got to know him well. He was sensible and a proper gentlemen, and I found myself growing to like him. When my papa pointed it out to me, he had to cease to exist. I could not get attached. So as I told you, me and my papa were a double act now and he travelled around with me when I went out with Combeferre. All three of us. We tried several trick but the stupid boy I was beginning to love just wouldn't kick the bucket. We did twenty tricks. None worked. We did them one after the other. Well one night we were walking trough the graveyard, I'd gotten him drunk but he was surprisingly good at holding his alcohol. We were having a few laughs when he 'fell' into an open grave. Several knives had found their way mysteriously into his chest as well as he reached and gabbed my ankle from the grave.

Well, I was in such a state of shock that I completely blacked out. I can't remember a thing. It wasn't until later, when washing the blood off the shovel, I even knew he was dead because of an unknown blow to his head and stab wounds. He wa s the first I was guilty about. Try to tell me that I was wrong. I know I wasn't.

Lies. I watched them in their flat. The golden man said he was helping the poor, and now he was drugging the wretched girl after he prised the gun from her hand. I was a little grateful for that. He held her down as she tried to fight against him. Stupid gamine. Soon enough she was unconscious. So I aimed. The next time SHE woke, Enjolras was lying dead with several bullets piecing his chest, almost pinning him to the blood soaked wall opposite the broken window. He had it coming. He only had himself to blame. If you'd have seen his speeches, if you had heard it. I bet that you would've done the same.

My grand finale. They were on the steps of the police station. For once, SHE was actually conscious. She seemed strong. Damn her. HE held her hand. I should've been mine. When he said he loved me, he said "a heart full of love." But it was all for the bitch. She spoiled my plan, even in death.

I cleared my throat, me and my papa yielding pistols aimed at them as they spun around. SHE was long overdue for death. Eponine should've died from disease in the poverty. Instead of worming her way into my life. She should've died at birth. HE was a pity. It was a pity I had to kill my Marius.

I raised my gun and shot. But Eponine had her hand over the end and the bullet ripped through her pretty, slutty, body. No no no no no. I aimed at Marius. Even in death, she couldn't get it right. Marius helped her stay on her feet. I had to do it now. She had to be alive to see him die. Adding the ultimate pain that she could not save him. She deserved it. Instead of causing her pain, I called myself pain. She was victorious even in death.

"Will you marry me Eponine?" He cupped her face as she smiled.

"Yes. And rain..." She breathed, smiling up at him.

"And rain." I knew he wanted her to finish what she was going to say.

"Will make the flowers..."

"Grow." Marius didn't take his eyes from the wretch as I shot him three times. "She shall have a ceremony in heaven with all ours friends there."

He was unable to hold both of them up anymore. They both collapsed and died holding hands, and wrapped in each others petty arms, smiling.

I sank to my knees in failure. I should've killed one. I should've killed Eponine so Marius would have to live knowing all were dead and gone. They had it coming. They had it coming all along. I didn't do it. But if I'd done it, how could you tell me that I was wrong?

I murdered them... Each and every single one.

Pop. Six. Squish. Uh uh. Cicero. Lipchitz. Guilt. Lie. Overdue pity.


End file.
